History

In the Fall of 2004 a handful of car enthusiasts/students decided to start a student chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers at SUNYIT. The vision of the organization consisted of designing, fabricating, and racing a single seat off-road buggy. Early on it was very difficult to acquire adequate funding to back a project this large. Members of the club approached SUNYIT faculty and the Syracuse and Utica communities in search of support for their project. With the help of the Syracuse section of the SAE and the support of the college the team was able to design and build their first car in 2005. Unfortunately, the student group was unable to raise enough funding to compete in the 2006 World Challenge. By 2007, the handful of eager students had grown to 20+ intelligent and capable future engineers.

In the spring of 2007 the SUNYIT Baja team competed in the Baja SAE World Challenge in Rochester, NY. It was quite a feat for a team started in 2004 to have raise the funding and built a capable car to compete against 140 other schools from across the world. The competition team consisted of 7 members. Andrew Knapp, Joe Sell, Adam Nugent, Ben Tucker, Jim Sanborn, Robbie Pazdur, and Eric "Boots" Hitchcock led by Dr. Daniel K. Jones represented the team at competition. The team placed 66 out of 140 teams with a 21st place finish in suspension and traction and a 16th place finish in land maneuverability. A very respectable finish for the team's first competition.

In 2008 the SUNYIT Baja team headed up to Montreal, Canada with a redesigned car and a fire lit under their arse. With a challenging course and many well groomed teams, the SUNYIT Baja team knew it would be a difficult competition. The team placed 35th in the suspension and traction, 25th in land maneuverability, 22nd in the log pull, and a 21st in the grueling 4 hour endurance race. The team placed an impressive 26th out of the 122 teams overall.

For 2009 the team will be updating the 2008 chassis as well as designing a new car. With fabrication to start on the new car in December, the team is stoked. The team was registered for both the Baja SAE Midwest and East and has ambitious plans of trouncing the competition!